Jesus Dealt With Distraction
My daily Bible reading has been taking me through the book of Matthew. As I was reading the other day, it struck me how many times Christ's prayer time was interrupted. For example, right after John the Baptist was killed, Jesus went apart to pray and mourn, but the multitude followed Him.
When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities. And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick. - Matthew 14:13-14
So, He deals with the people, then sends the disciples away, and goes to the mountains to pray. What happened? A storm came, and the disciples needed Him, so He went to them.
And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. - Matthew 14:22-25
If you recall, when He went into the wilderness at the beginning of His ministry, He went to be alone with Him Father. But who showed up? That's right. Satan himself.
Time and time again we see that when Jesus tries to pray or to be alone with God, His efforts are thwarted. Jesus had to deal with distractions too. We all know what it's like. We want to read our Bibles. We want to spend time in prayer. We want to be alone with God. But there are so many distractions. There are so many other things that need to be done.
One thing I noticed about Jesus was that He never stopped trying. Yes, He would stop and meet the needs of others when circumstances arose, but in the very next verses you find Him on His way to pray again. In fact, with His dying breath, He was still talking with His Father.
Distractions will come. It is inevitable. We, however, cannot give up when they continue to surface. Instead, we need to try even harder. Prayer time was interrupted three times this week? That's sad, but don't let it become four. Sometimes, we just need to make the time. I know that seems impossible in our day, but we DO have the time to spend with God. We just can't let other things keep us from it.